I think this is a very good idea. I'd be annoyed if fps like HL 2 made you start over when you died and thus i get very annoyed when i die on citical mass, particularly when its completely out of the blue. Critical mass has limited replayability, my real desire is always to get to a really high level, which i have done, before i lost my roll of hounour . Ive started again and died after mission 7 and im thinking to myself whats the point??

But what are we adding by not letting people respawn, the game has enough challenge already, ive seen the higher levels. And realism isn't really there in a turn based space shooter anyway. I cant see any reason why respawns are not allowed.

the problem with instant death is i struggle to try out new ship designs. If i build several variations of heavy fighter and one variation is terrible and i die, then i have to start all over again to try the other types. Building ships is one of the best parts of cmass 3 and 4, but on cmass4 i struggle to try them out. I dont want to fly a potentially terrible fighter and risk death when ive got a workable and well used design already.

personally i prefer staying dead. i think its fun to try and top my longest running commander. think of it like trying to top your high score on asteroids. i also think it would make the game WAY less intense and therefor less fun. also hl 2 has an ending, cm does not.

Steve! ses "i struggle to try out new ship designs"

I do however agree that it sucks to not be able to try out your ships. therefor i prepose to sean that he make a test mission for the ship designer. or better yet! remember the gauntlet on wingcommander? have a mission were you can not win. survive as long as you can in the ship of your choice

How about a feature where you can't resurrect a commander for 24 (real) hours.
I've played games like this before and you end up with about three players on the go at once. When one dies you have to pick up annother. It still makes it important not to die (so you are disinclined to to take big risk/big reward actions) but still permits you to keep that 'many hours invested' commander when you are unfortunate enough to get a surprise missile up the tailpipe.

BoxZone_Author wrote:How about a feature where you can't resurrect a commander for 24 (real) hours.
I've played games like this before and you end up with about three players on the go at once. When one dies you have to pick up annother. It still makes it important not to die (so you are disinclined to to take big risk/big reward actions) but still permits you to keep that 'many hours invested' commander when you are unfortunate enough to get a surprise missile up the tailpipe.

Wow That sounds like a outstanding idea if you ask me BUT... what IF someone WANTED to die... like goblinarcher... heh heh heh ! How would you please people like that???

I don't plan to change the game so that you can get resurrected. I used to play Doom and you could hit an F key to save the game so all I did was save the game before turning every corner and then take a look, get killed, and reload the old game before I turned the corner. Got really tedious after a while.

I wanted death in Critical Mass to really mean death. That way you had to really think long and hard before acting like the bravest pilot in the galaxy.

I do plan to redo the AI for computer ships firing misssiles to cut down on friendly fire though, but I won't make it easy to resurrect yourself.

Sean O'Connor wrote:I don't plan to change the game so that you can get resurrected. I used to play Doom and you could hit an F key to save the game so all I did was save the game before turning every corner and then take a look, get killed, and reload the old game before I turned the corner. Got really tedious after a while.

I wanted death in Critical Mass to really mean death. That way you had to really think long and hard before acting like the bravest pilot in the galaxy.

I do plan to redo the AI for computer ships firing misssiles to cut down on friendly fire though, but I won't make it easy to resurrect yourself.

Yeah, I see how that makes the game quite a bit more exhilarating! I know for one thing... it sure keeps me on my toes !

I don't think you should be able to reload games during a mission, but I think when you beat a mission the next should be unlocked for unlimited use - So I can play back missions whenever I want, trying to beat previous scores and learning to master every level.

I've never really liked games where you lose all progress upon dying, I like playing through the game making steady progress and being able to replay my favourite missions from the past at will.

What you say makes sense, sean, which is why I wouldn't want to see saving/reloading during an actual mission, just the ability to replay any previously unlocked mission again without starting from the beginning. I think it would up the replayability of the game for me a thousand fold.

You can, as the original poster stated, still have a highscores table for the current mode of the game, but just have a seperate table, like slay, which records your personal records for each level.

It's the same kind of mentality that goes with games like Diablo II, with Hardcore mode. I prefer dying to mean actually dying. Once resurrection is so easy, then people will abuse it. High scores will mean nothing, and the game will become just as boring as the kinds of games where everyone cheats and no one cares. In other game genres, such as strategy and adventure, I prefer to save frequently, but action/simulation titles like CM lose their edge when the consequences for dying are removed.

Plus, "real" death adds wondrous flavor to the game. Once you've put in more than 40 hours of gameplay on one commander, you start to think REALLY hard about whether to save your radar stations or accept a failure. Suddenly, the missions become so real that your nightmares are filled with burning rear engines, and your hands start to sweat when you hear the missile alarm. (Not really. But you get the point.)

"Stupid people exist to give smart people something fun to do." ~Me
"Those who can constantly quote others aren't necessarily well-read. Maybe they simply have no ideas of their own." ~Me